


Beautiful Disaster

by bumbleb_tch



Series: Leather and Lace AU [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop & Tattoo Parlor, F/M, He's just stupid in love with her okay, Useless Lesbian Adrien Agreste, You thought he couldn't be move oblivious but I'm here to prove you wrong, but it is in the same universe as pt 1 so >.>, just a bunch of fluff per popular demand, this has next to nothing to do with flowers or tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23900689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bumbleb_tch/pseuds/bumbleb_tch
Summary: Adrien still wondered what side of the bed she slept on- and silenced any stray thoughts hissing that it didn’t matter which side as long as he was waking up next to her...He didn’t wonder what her skin tasted like- his mouth chasing her hand, pressing a reverent and not-exactly-platonic kiss to her palm, caught in each other’s gaze and trembling for just a moment.Marinette’s laugh sounded a little too much like his mother’s when he’d done something as a child that she’d found particularly charming, but the cord that tightened around his chest didn’t hurt as much as it usually did. Her eyes betrayed something more than a gentle affection, but Adrien didn’t dare let himself search to name it.He wondered if it was too early to tell her he loved her.He wondered if he was brave enough to do it anyway.----Sequel to Leather and Lace
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Chloé Bourgeois, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: Leather and Lace AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722718
Comments: 25
Kudos: 162





	Beautiful Disaster

**Author's Note:**

> This can probably be read stand alone but it will make more sense if you read pt. 1  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/23524525
> 
> Okay okay okay I hope y'all are ready for Adrien to be denser than a fog in the Smokey Mountains 
> 
> My endless thanks to my wonderful beta Papillon10 :D
> 
> Also! I have a headcanon that Adrien is exactly the kind of dork to have goofy contact names and custom ringtones and you Cannot Change My Mind.

It took him three hours to text her. It took him three weeks to get up the nerve to ask her to lunch. You’d think that a guy who showed up to his first “family dinner” after moving out with a shaggy undercut, a torn graphic tee, and his brand new tattoo fully on display-not to mention a tongue stud he made sure Nathalie was well aware of-would be less of a spineless softy...

Yet here he was. 

Standing outside a florist, calling Chloe for the third time in a row, because two times was not enough to prove he was serious about not letting her screen the call. Oh, and sweating profusely. 

“Adrien, I do not have the time,” Chloe snapped through the phone, sounding as though she’d swallowed a whole lemon.

Adrien cupped his hand around his mouth and hissed, “It’s an emergency, just do me a solid for once, Chloe.” He took a deep breath and focused on not imagining strangling his best friend. 

There was a brief silence because apparently Chloe felt the need to consider the validity of his statements despite the fact that they’d been friends for over two decades. “You have 30 seconds, if it’s ridiculous I  _ will  _ hang up on you.

“Okay so say hypothetically someone was going to lunch with a girl they were interested in but, like, it’s not a date, it’s just as friends, but, like, if you wanted to be more than friends, maybe, you think, then would it be too much to show up with flowers? Like, if it were you, and you really liked the girl, would you bring her flowers?” Adrien ran out of breath and panted into the line, shifting anxiously from one foot to the other.

Silence.

He pulled the phone away and glanced at the screen. She’d hung up. Typical.

The cell buzzed with a new message. A photo of a perfectly manicured middle finger. 

**_Wicked Bitch of the West:_ ** Take her flowers, ask her on a real date, grow a brain. 

It was supplemented with a cat emoji that he was sure was meant to be insulting. Adrien sighed and looked back up at the florist’s display before realising he was never going to be able to decide himself. He spun on his heel and took off to look for the clerk. 

\----

It turned out, not only was everything about Marinette so adorable it made his insides melt into goo that apparently caused instant brain death, but so was everything she did. From her nose wrinkle when she giggled, to the way she held her phone with her pinky crooked out as if she were holding a teacup, to the playful bite in her words when she retorted to one of his terrible jokes. Adrien was practically coming apart at the seams. 

Every thirty seconds he had to remind himself to stop staring at her vacantly and look at anything else in the room so he could think straight for more than one consecutive second. God, she probably thought he was a complete moron. 

Luckily, Marinette either hadn't noticed or was too kind to comment and continued to chatter happily in his general direction, much like every day. She blinked across the table at him with those massive blue eyes that had him drowning in his own hopeless infatuation, and nearly rendered him incapable of even hearing what she was saying. "I'm sorry, what?" Adrien apologized with a wry smile.

"Are you feeling okay?" She laughed and reached across the table to brush her hand against his forehead, the touch burning like a brand that had him frozen beneath it, desperate to lean into it and jerk away at the same time. "I asked what you do when you're not busy stabbing people and not giving your cat enough attention."

Adrien pouted, his indignance overriding his bashfulness. "Plagg is the most spoiled cat I know, don't you dare defend him." 

Marinette tilted her head and tapped the side of her nose. "If that were true, why does he beg for my attention constantly?"

"Because he's a traitorous bastard and an attention whore, to boot." He scoffed, sitting back to roll his eyes and really ruminate on the fact that he was at lunch with a beautiful woman who was still more interested in his cat. 

Stifling a small shriek, Marinette's eyes twinkled with mirth above her hands. "You can't call him a bastard!"

"He is a bastard and I address him as such to his face," Adrien retorted with a good natured huff. "To answer your question, I don't do much else. Some art, I play the piano, and I guess, video games?" It seemed that being preoccupied with beating back jealousy over his feline roommate helped him actually form sentences.

She stiffened in her seat and Adrien could practically see her ears prick with excitement, "Okay, first of all! That's exactly why he wants my attention- you're mean to him all the time!" The easygoing glee apparent on her face left him feeling equal parts envious of her openness and enraptured with how adorable she was. 

" And second of all, tell me more about what games you play. I don't get as much free time as I used to, but my family's bonding activity has always been video games."  Marinette was leaned over the table with her hands propped beneath her chin, bluebell eyes wide and expectant. 

His heart dropped into his stomach and Adrien resisted the urge to smack himself across the face.  _ Way to go, Agreste, how are you supposed to get her to like you enough to go on a date if you can’t keep it together to have a single lowkey lunch as friends?  _

“Oh, uh,” Adrien rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, “I really like this game called Miraculous? Have you heard of it?”

The thud of Marinette’s hands slamming down on the table thundered in his ears like judgement and he certainly didn’t almost fall out of his seat. Then she was squealing in a sort of high pitched and gleeful slur that Adrien couldn’t decipher but generally understood to mean two things.

Marinette did in fact know Miraculous, an action fighting game that he’d been playing since his early teens.

And also she seemed to be very passionate about it.

Adrien lost himself in a haze of gazing up at her blankly, taking in the fiery energy pouring off the woman across from him, her eyes bright and loose tendrils of hair bouncing with her fervent hand movements. 

She was stunning- in every way- like a fresh spring breeze breathing new life into a stark winter landscape. Her very presence felt almost like an embrace, soft and encouraging. 

Marinette’s hand waving in front of his face brought him back to the present, the teasing smile that curved her lips twisting his insides in a delightfully uncomfortable way as he stuttered out a garbled and thoroughly unintelligible response.

Adrien wondered if he’d ever be able to pull off lowkey and casual while she was looking at him like that. 

\-----

Their date had ended with Marinette slaughtering him 23 to 7, and if his pride was bruised it was soothed a million times over by her leaping to her feet and bouncing about in a sort of victory dance every time she won. But Adrien had managed to look her in the eye and challenge her to come back for a rematch without stuttering even once.

And honestly? That felt like an Olympic win in his book. 

Their rematch revealed they had way more fun playing on a team than they did beating each other, and together they were damn near unstoppable...when Adrien was paying attention. 

Unfortunately for them both, he was only just beginning to learn how to exist as a person in the presence of what he’d concluded was not a human woman but actually some sort of nymph gracing him with her company. 

Game night quickly devolved into every other night spent sprawled haphazardly across a couch, spending more time watching Marinette-memorizing every freckle, every crinkle around her eyes, every subtle movement to signal her joy- than watching whatever was on the screen. 

If you asked him to list the things they’d watched in the last week, Adrien would be hard pressed to confess even one. Luckily, Chloe didn’t care enough to ask, so no one had to know about his favourite hobby. 

Learning about Marinette was eons better than daydreaming about learning about her. 

For instance, he now knew that she chewed her lower lip whenever she was concentrating, and he’d lost more than one match by focusing on the movement of her teeth sinking into plush pink flesh, rather than the enemies attacking them. 

He'd be lying if he said he didn't think about the way her skin would give under his own teeth.

Adrien hated himself a little more every time he thought about it, feeling as though he were betraying her trust as her friend by being so preoccupied with his attraction to her. Rational? Not exactly, but he was prone to the occasional bout of self-hatred. 

He knew that when Marinette’s nerves were starting to fray, her left eye twitched, subtle and almost unnoticeable if you weren’t studying her face like it was an ancient religious canon holding the secrets of the universe. Luckily for him, he had yet to irritate her enough to witness it aimed in his direction.

Chloe on the other hand… Adrien had to give her credit for bothering to show up at all; she had claimed to be making an effort. She even managed to keep her usual antics to a minimum, leaving the night relatively barb free, although the atmosphere was somewhat stiff and itchy against his skin. 

But Marinette’s eye had twitched for the better half of two hours and Chloe sighed at least o nce every five minutes.

Chloe had not returned for game night since. 

(Although Marinette and Chloe later struck a truce involving their shared affection for Adrien and a small plot to destroy a mutual “enemy”. He was not permitted to know the details.)

After she’d left, Marinette wheeled around to pin him to the wall with her gaze, a delicious fire spilling from her eyes and pooling somewhere deep in his gut as she alternated apologizing for insulting his friend and calling Chloe all the names he called her to her face every day. 

Her hair coming loose of its ties, wild and bouncing with her every movement, the righteous fury edging her voice like a gilded blade; she was a lightning storm, so all consuming in her untamed beauty it almost didn’t bother him how attractive he found her in that moment.

Almost. 

Cause he still felt a little like he was taking advantage of her, sitting next to her, and watching her- adoring her- and pretending everything was cool and they were just friends. 

Adrien still wondered what side of the bed she slept on- and silenced any stray thoughts hissing that it didn’t matter which side as long as he was waking up next to her. 

But he didn’t wonder what she looked like curled up for a nap with his goblin of a cat nestled in her arms- perfect in a way that left something in him aching to see it every day of his life. 

He didn't wonder what her fingers felt like in his hair- scraping against his scalp to melt him beneath her hands as though he were made of wax and she was a vibrant flame. 

He didn’t wonder what her lips brushing across his cheek might feel like- like a rose petal scraping along his skin, so soft it was little more than a breath, but a heavy brand on his soul.

He didn’t wonder what her skin tasted like- his mouth chasing her hand, pressing a reverent and not-exactly-platonic kiss to her palm, caught in each other’s gaze and trembling for just a moment. 

Marinette’s laugh sounded a little too much like his mother’s when he’d done something as a child that she’d found particularly charming, but the cord that tightened around his chest didn’t hurt as much as it usually did. Her eyes betrayed something more than a gentle affection, but Adrien didn’t dare let himself search to name it. 

He wondered if it was too early to tell her he loved her.

He wondered if he was brave enough to do it anyway. 

\----

Locking the door to Cataclysm and waving to Plagg in the window- with a quick glare to remind him to behave- Adrien turned to face Marinette, a radiant smile on her face already, warming him from head to toe. 

She giggled as he offered her his arm, looping their elbows together to set off down the street side by side, “I think Maman was more excited to hear that you were coming to lunch than she was that I am and frankly, I’m a little insulted by it.” 

Despite her words, she sounded more amused than anything else, so Adrien aimed a teasing grin her way- he’d gotten much better at existing in her presence over the last few weeks- “My manners are my most attractive quality, I can successfully charm any parent.”

“Most attractive quality my ass!” Marinette shrieked, blushing- super normally and not so adorably it made his heart lurch and his lungs seize- as soon as the words left her mouth. She coughed and pointedly looked straight ahead. “Uhm, what I meant was-”

“Oh? And what is my most attractive quality?” A raised eyebrow and husky tone rewarded him with a glorious darkening of the rosy hue staining Marinette’s skin and Adrien reveled in the victory of having managed to fluster her for once. 

Sputtering and flushed Marinette was a Marinette he found himself wanting to see more of- like he didn’t already crave everything about her all the damn time anyway. But just as quickly, her eyes narrowed and she was jabbing a finger into his chest, backing him into the nearest wall, and he would certainly be lying if he tried to say it didn’t tempt something in him that was starving and desperate. 

But whatever she was about to say was drowned out by his phone ringing.

Or more accurately, the sound of the iconic Kill Bill sirens belting from his pocket at top volume.

Groaning, Adrien dug the phone from his pocket and accepted the call, projecting an intense amount of sulkiness into his voice, “Hi Nat, I’m busy.” He mouthed sorry to Marinette and moved a few feet away to suffer through what would hopefully be a short conversation.

If he was lucky. And he usually wasn’t. 

“Adrien.” It was an acknowledgement as much as a greeting but that was about as warm as Nathalie got, “It has come to your father’s attention that you’ve been spending an exceptional amount of time with a young woman these last few weeks. He would like to arrange a dinner with you to discuss this."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and dug deep for the patience to not hang up. “Where did he hear that?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.” Nathalie’s voice was too calm and measured for him to even consider believing her. 

“I’m sure you don’t, Nat.” If the heavy snort before his words didn’t convey how he felt, the sarcasm would hammer it home. Adrien glanced back over his shoulder at Marinette and dropped his voice, “Tell my father to mind his own business, I don’t have a girlfriend, I don’t have a fuckbuddy, and even if I did, he is not going to police my life. If he wants to talk he can damn well call me himself.” 

He hung up before she could respond and ignored the familiar bruise in his chest that ached whenever he thought about his father, or being hopelessly in love with Marinette. But Adrien pasted on one of the patented model smiles trained into him from a young age- even though he knew Marinette could always somehow see through even his best masks- and turned back to her with an extra dramatic skip in his step. 

“Are you okay?” She blurted out before he could apologize again, her brow furrowed and 

“Purrfect!” His grin was too wide and too much tooth and he knew she knew he was lying, but she just studied him for a long moment. 

Marinette’s features softened and she sidled up to him, linking their arms once more. “You’d better hope my mother is feeling forgiving because I am absolutely going to throw you under the bus for making us late.”

He chuckled, “Sounds fair to me, Mari.” And if his voice was a little cracked and raspy, they both pretended not to notice. 

\----

The third time his phone played the opening lines of Lady Gaga’s “Donatella’, Adrien shut off his shower and leaned out to snatch it off the counter. “Chloe, I’m just trying to practice some basic hygiene, what’s the emergency?”

“Adrikins!” Chloe chirped, her voice unusually sugary, “Cancel your plans for tonight.” 

He kept his voice perfectly flat as he ran a towel through his hair and wiped down the mirror, suppressing a sigh of exasperation, “As much as I’d love to drop my entire life and jump to fulfill your every whim, I must decline with my deepest regrets.” 

“Ugh, abandoning me for your little girlfriend  _ again.” _

Adrien wondered if he was imagining that her words sounded a little flat, lacking their usual bite. He pursed his lips and focused his attention on rifling through his closet for the right shirt. “She’s not my girlfriend, Chloe.”

“Are you sure about that.” Chloe’s words were flat, a statement rather than a question, really.

He pulled the phone back so he could glare at it as if she could see. They’d already had this conversation four times this week and once today alone! “Yes? Wh-” 

She didn’t bother to let him finish before cutting him off. “How much time have you been spending with her? Specifically?”

“I dunno, Chlo, why?” Adrien whined, holding up a button up and then a pullover, trying to decide which looked better. 

The tone she switched to was the one he not-so-affectionately referred to as her ‘lawyer voice’- quick, sharp, and clinical, like an interrogation. “Do you text her every day?”

“I-”

Chloe cut him off once again. “Don’t answer, these questions are rhetorical, I already know the answers. I’m making a point.” 

Adrien rolled his eyes so far back in his head it actually hurt and threw himself back on his bed to wait out whatever lecture she was about to give whether he wanted to hear it or not. His hair was near soaking wet still and it was going to make his pillow damp, but he couldn’t bring himself to care at that exact moment. 

He’d really much rather be thinking about dinner with Marinette in two hours, but no, of course not, instead he had to listen to his best friend chew him out for reasons as of yet unknown. Adrien tuned back into Chloe’s rant.

“Do you  _ call  _ her every day? Do you  _ see  _ her every day? Have you had a ‘movie night’ no less than three times in the last week? Do you not have a  _ literal date tonight _ ? So let me ask again, are you  _ SURE  _ you don’t have a girlfriend?” Chloe had managed to shriek for a solid minute and a half without a breath, a talent he had long envied. 

He technically couldn’t argue with anything that she’d said but he also knew they’d literally had almost this exact conversation eight hours earlier and he’d already defended himself taking it slow, even if she didn’t think that was a valid reason. “Well you don’t have to say it like that.”

“On the contrary, Adrien Agreste, I do. Do you know why?” Once again, she did not pause long enough for him to respond, plowing forward in an increasingly scolding manner. “Because I saw Marinette today and do you know what she told me? She talked until my ears bled with praises of you and how excited she was for your ‘date’ tonight which is coincidentally, since I’m not sure you received the memo, your one month anniversary. 

“Which according to Marinette isn’t really important enough to celebrate, but she was so excited that you remembered and scheduled this dinner that she could hardly concentrate on anything today. Oh and don’t let me forget how appreciative she was of you giving her space and taking it slow, but she’s really hoping you finally, let me repeat, finally, kiss her tonight.” 

When Chloe finally stopped, she was practically foaming at the mouth and Adrien didn’t need to see her to know it, but his brain was moving faster than he could ever hope to keep up with, and all that kept coming up was a massive error sign followed by his brain crashing and bursting into flame.

Gentleness had never been a word used to describe Chloe and today was not the day that was going to change, so she snapped him out of his tailspin with a quick, no nonsense wrap up that reminded him a little too much of Nathalie scolding him through getting ready after he’d overslept as a teenager. 

“In conclusion, you have somehow managed to be even more of a Useless Lesbian than me, which is pretty impressive since I’m the lesbian and you’re a three-time winner of Paris’ most eligible bachelor.”

Chloe wasn’t pulling her punches and Adrien found himself wondering distantly in the numbness of shock if she was being defensive of Marinette, which meant Chloe had decided she liked her after all. 

“So if you don’t put on your big boy pants at this exact second and take that woman on the most romantic date of her entire life, I will personally gut you and date her myself.” She finished, with a note of diamond finality that brooked no arguments. 

He was the single most oblivious bastard to walk the face of the earth. A reproachful voice in the back of his head hissed that Marinette deserved someone with at least two brain cells to rub together and he didn’t seem to make that cut.

Except, Marinette apparently  _ wanted  _ to be dating him.

“Adrien?”

Apparently, she thought she  _ was _ dating him.

“Chloe.”

She wanted him to  _ kiss her, FINALLY. _

Chloe huffed, her tone once again soured with haughtiness, “I should start charging you for my services.”

Adrien’s heart felt as though it were playing scales along his ribs, and he couldn’t quite remember how to breathe. 

“I-I have to go.”   


He can hear the smirk in Chloe’s voice but can’t find it in himself to even be the slightest bit bothered by it. “Make sure to tell Marinette I say hi  _ before  _ you stick your tongue in her mouth.”

The call ended.

His phone slipped between his fingers, falling to the floor with a dull thud. 

Staring unseeing at the ceiling above him, Adrien let the revelations wash over him fully, sucking in a few ragged breaths. Then he launched himself off the bed, scrambling for his phone.

The phone connected and he didn’t bother to wait for her to speak. “Chloe, I’m in love with her.”

“I know.”

His mouth was running away with him, as it was sometimes prone to do, and he barely realized she even spoke. “I know that sounds crazy, I’ve only known her for a few months and we’ve only been dating for a month and I didn’t even realize it, but I think I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I’ve never felt anything like this, being with her is like being home, but it’s wherever she is and-wait, you know?”

Adrien’s train of thought plowed away without him, leaving him behind to sputter incoherently.

Chloe had clearly reached the limit of her daily patience- which was incredibly low to begin with. “Adrikins, darling, brother I never had, I’ve known you since we were both in designer diapers, I’ve watched you grow up, chased by women after your fame and your face. I’ve never even seen you look twice at one of them. I’ve never seen you look twice at  _ anyone _ . I thought you were going to come up ace one of these days and I would have to fend off every “i-can-change-your-mind” fangirl in Paris once the media somehow caught wind.” 

She was rambling again, truths spilling from her lips in a manner well outside Chloe's usual habits, never one to reveal how she really felt beneath her spoiled and prissy exterior. Chloe kept herself shallow for a reason, it was easier that way. 

Adrien knew better than to acknowledge it, and retorted, “I haven’t been in the media in like three years, Chloe.”

“Actually,” Chloe snipped back, “you were in a ‘where are they now?’ article a few weeks ago, but that’s beside the point. You’re being ridiculous. Do a couple shots and tell her you love her. It works for me.” 

She hung up on him this time, her duty apparently fulfilled.

Adrien did not do a couple shots. 

He didn’t even stop to put on a pair of shoes.

Barefoot, hair still dripping, he sprinted out of his apartment, not even realizing what he was doing or where he was going until he was panting outside of Marinette’s door and banging on it with a little more desperate force than was probably necessary. 

Marinette opened the door, the confusion etched across her features quickly melting into concern. “Adrien? Are you alright?” Her hair was damp too, and she was wearing a giant hoodie that he was s pretty sure actually belonged to him and that alone nearly sent him into a fresh tailspin, but he pulled it together and straightened up to cup her cheeks in his hands.

Her eyes widened and a soft blush bloomed under his thumbs, and suddenly it wasn’t just the sprinting that had Adrien feeling breathless. “Marinette. I am so fucking stupid, I’m so sorry” He dropped his forehead to rest against hers, closer to her than he’d ever let himself be before, and it might kill him before he could even manage to tell her the truth. 

Her mouth was open, poised with a question or protest, but nothing emerged and Adrien realized a little late that he’d been staring at her lips in silence and fighting back the desperate pull to devour her. “Chloe called me today,” 

Marinette eyed him funny, probably because he’d transitioned from being mere inches away from dissolving into a kiss to bringing up her most recent frenemy, but Adrien just kept rambling, his tongue picking up speed. “And she gave me a well deserved wake up call about this stunning woman that I’m friends with who literally makes my head spin and my world tilt on its axis cause it turns out I’ve been dating her for a whole month and I had no idea.” 

A choked noise tore itself from her throat, but her wide blue eyes were more inscrutable than he’d ever seen them. Adrien faltered, just barely, before clearing his throat, “But I’m- I’m stupid in love with you, and I’d really like to kiss you, and also maybe get in a long term monogamous relationship, if you’re into that, and-”

Every thought he’d ever had disappeared when Marinette surged up to press her lips to his, collapsing in his arms like she belonged there all along, and he slid one of his hands along her jaw to the back of her head, winding his fingers in the silk strands of her hair and tilting her head just so. She was trembling against him, moaning into his mouth, and Adrien only had the brief clarity to wonder if it was dramatic to say that a million lifetimes spent kissing her would still never be enough to sate the unquenchable thirst in his soul.

It didn’t even hurt his feelings when Marinette pulled away to laugh, husky and breathless, her lips close enough to his that her words felt as though they could be spilling from his own mouth. “I-I think I love you too, you beautiful disaster of a person.”

Later Adrien would have no recollection what happened next, but it certainly wasn’t because he passed out and hit his head. That would be humiliating. 

**Author's Note:**

> Well there you go guys, we got a little bit of the lunch date, we got some truly oblivious Adrien, I know I neglected Mari a little bit for a fic that is so focused on her but we aren't gonna talk about it cause I was really busy being deep in Adrien's head. 
> 
> I hope y'all enjoyed it!


End file.
